A decapitated skeleton with its skull mysteriously placed at his feet and a 'mercenary' buried with his sword have been discovered in Roman-era graves

A Roman-era mercenary buried with his sword and beheaded skeleton has been found in the United Kingdom.

rubicon Heritage Services was hired by the Vale of Glamorgan council to assess a road they wanted to change.

It led to the discovery of hundreds of graves and an extensive collection of artifacts.

Roman skeletons 

Mark Collard, the managing director of Rubicon Heritage, told Insider that there was a collection of Roman artifacts and skeletons in one section of the road.

One is believed to be a mercenary, buried with a large sword and a military broach, dated to the period that the "Roman Empire fell apart in Britain," Collard said.

Rubicon heritage

There was a man buried with his head by his feet.

Archeologists found the same corpse configuration in 17 decapitated skeletons in a Roman graveyard in Suffolk, England, in 2019.

archaeologists were scratching their heads after the find.

It's a mystery what the practice was about. Archaeologists told Live Science that one theory suggests a link to a pagan belief system of pre-Roman Celtic tribes who considered the head to be the container for the soul.

The men were buried on a large hill with great views over the countryside. You have to think there must be a reason for that.

An ancient burial site 

Rubicon heritage

A section of the road that was excavated revealed a burial site from a later period that raised many questions.

The medieval burial ground in the middle of a field has been uncovered by Collard and his team.

It is unusual that they are buried in the middle of a field. It is not near a church. That is one of the reasons we are puzzled about why people would go back for so long to bury someone.

The team is looking for family links to the bodies, signs of diseases or injuries, and clues about diet.

Rubicon heritage

Bronze Age cremations, an arrowhead, and a 3000-year-old roundhouse have been found so far in the excavation of Five Mile Lane.

The findings will be published at the end of 2022.

Archaeologists always say that they didn't expect to find this much, and in this case we really didn't, because the preceding surveys didn't raise many hopes. It has proved to be an incredibly densely occupied prehistoric, Roman, and later landscape with lots of activity from 4000 BC to the Second World War.